Chipmusic Movies

I recently got to see the French chipmusic documentary 8 Bit Generation, which premiered at Blip Festival 2007. Compared to 8 Bit, shown at the previous Blip Festival, this is more focused on the European chipmusic scene’s place in popular music culture, whereas 8 Bit had an American focus and discussed chipmusic more in relation to art and the future. In 8 Bit Generation you can hear a lot from Malcolm McLaren, who was quite into chipmusic a few years ago – when this documentary was essentially filmed. I will get back with more proper reviews when I can see 8 Bit again.

Reformat the Planet is movie documentary to be released soon by 2 Player Productiuons. Based on the Blip Festival 2006, it is “using New York as a microcosm for a larger global movement” and seems to focus on Nintendo products and videogames. update feb09: after seeing a private screener, the narrow focus on New York and Gameboy/NES feels a bit annoying (even ignorant?). But the inclusion of visual artists and interesting discussions about videogame nostalgia and commercialism in the second half, lifts the documentary.

The 8bit Philosophy is another upcoming documentary with an online trailer. It seems to be aimed at C64-gamers and people that enjoy remixes of C64 game songs, so I would expect less philosophy than history, really.Does anyone know of more chipmusic documentaries around?

[…] that the chip music documentary movie Reformat the Planet is now available online for a week. The first time I saw it I got a bit annoyed with the überfocus on New York and Gameboys. With that in mind […]